Angel
by The Bud
Summary: Rape insinuated... Please, if you are a minor, leave this be, I'll write a humour one for you.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own this. Nor any part to it. Please don't sue me.  
  
Just as a little side note, No matter how long you've been typing, you have to relearn when you have a wedding band on.  
  
Angel.  
In a small grassy field, two young people sit in the late noon sun, holding each other as the scents of spring and clover surround them. " You don't know how much I've missed you, Jean." The rather tall man spoke to his loving wife. " There were times when I was sure I'd never even see you again." He said as he kissed the top of her long, flowing carrot red hair.  
"I don't understand why you couldn't at least have told me where you were," She playfully admonished. "I am a mind reader, you know."   
She loves this man, the good love. The kind that kings would have traded their entire empires for, the sweet love, the one that you wake up every morning wanting more and when you're away from your love, you feel like your going to die. That kind of love.  
"When Apocalypse merged with me, Jean, I had to do everything I could to keep you safe." He told her as he turned to his Side to look into her deep green eyes. The kind of green that rivals the very clover that surrounds them, the very green that sets the fire in her red hair ablaze   
"Scott, I love you, I always have, and you know this." She said looking back into his glass-covered eyes. "Scott, there's something not right with you!" She notes.  
The landscape starts to change; the man's face she loves so much takes on a more greyish skin tone, and his voice deepens to a low growl. Jean Grey-Summers is no longer in a plush and green field, Instead, she finds herself on a cold, hard steel table, Naked and vulnerable. The face of Nathaniel Essex, also known as Mr. Sinister stares at her. He is not alone, his once sworn enemy, the very one that ruined his work stands sneering beside him. Apocalypse, El Saba Nur, The oldest known mutant. He Has the ability to infest other peoples bodies, use them as his own and burn them out. Use the very energy of life that keeps a person a person, until the host body crackles and fades out slowly, such as that of a dwindling fire.  
This abomination recently acquired Jean Grey's husband, they were young, and newly married, Jean and her husband, Scott never had the chance to have the normal life they wanted. All stolen away by the man who now wears her husbands face as his own.  
"I trust you are comfortable, Ms. Grey." Sinister comments. Her answer comes in the form of a wet and cold trail of spit, running down his forehead. "If you weren't carrying the child I need so dearly, woman, I'd see you'd never think to do that again." Mr. Sinister calmly spoke  
"What are you talking about!" She screamed." My husband has been dead a year!"  
"True, yes my dear, in mind, but as you shall see, his body, while it looks different is still quite whole." Sinister explained as he turned to his former foe with his evil and toothy grin. "I have had you here, Ms Grey, for nearly a month in sleep, to catch you during you're estrous."  
  
"A month! No one has looked!?" She asked alarmed.  
"Ms. Grey, No one knows to look for you." Sinister stated. " I do have ways of taking care of that."  
"Maddie!" She breathed. " You evil monster!"  
"Yes, the woman has to serve some purpose. After all, She did fail where I now shall have you succeed." Sinister mocked as he ran one finger almost fatherly to remove a stray strand of hair from Jean's face. " The original is always more valuable than a copy."  
"Why did you do this, Monster?!" Jean asked of the grey-faced Apocalypse. "What could this possibly have merited you?!" She spat as she struggled against her chains. "Answer me!"  
"You are in no position to make demands of me, Woman." The ancient one spoke. " You are the spouse of this body. You are mine and your children shall be my fodder for new life." He continued. "Save that, you are little more than an annoyance to me."  
"Dear Ms. Grey," Sinister injected, "I could not harvest your eggs, so to speak, because of the damage young Nathan had imposed upon my lab some time ago, I had to do this the old fashioned way." Sinister smiled. " I hope you don't mind, you are so terribly old fashioned. And after all, the child shall, technically be your late husbands."  
The horrid reality of what has happened sinks ever deeper into her mind as she tries even harder to free herself.  
  
"Do not struggle so, my dear, you wouldn't want to harm yourself." Sinister chastised. " I would so hate to have to do this again."  
"You'll be found out!" She shouted as she twisted against the cold, hard and binding metal that chaffed her wrists raw. "The X-Men won't fall for this!"  
"I awoke you," Sinister sneered, "So that you would have the chance to do this gracefully." He said as he approached the table Jean was now restrained to. "You have mocked my hospitality!" The sharp-toothed man growled as he raised his hand to silence her. "Now, do be quiet, woman!"  
The sharp crack of his hand against her face ran through the laboratory as she let out a gasp of surprise. " I refuse to kill my own breeding cattle, however I am not adverse to put you in your place. You've made me draw blood." Sinister claimed as he sopped the trail away from Jean's mouth. "A useful sample. Do not move."  
"Is this what you did to Rebecca?" Jean threw at her captor.  
"Don't you ever, EVER, mention my dead wife again, is this clear?!" Sinister yelled as he became more enraged at this spit fire now in his possession.  
"Why?" Jean asked. "You have already told me you won't kill me. I am not afraid of you."  
"There are things worse that death, wench!" Sinister threatened. "And I can assure you, had I not been here your entire life, your mother would have killed you in her womb. Don't tempt me."  
The waiting grey figure in the corner that bears the undead body of Scott Summers as his own speaks. His voice is gritted with the sands of a thousand years in Egypt's hot sun and desert. "When do we let the woman home? I grow weary of her."  
"We will keep her here, for the last time!" Sinister roared as small vials and glasses spilled their fluid content over the laboratory floor. "Make yourself useful. Put her to sleep."  
"You said you would give me the cure from this body!" El Saba contended. "This woman is a telepath! Make her exorcise Summers from this mind!"  
"The child shall be your new host," Sinister spoke. "Or have you forgotten your plight to me? A free template of the same line, Summers in his own body to propagate my plans, and yours." Sinister reminded.  
"Yes, but the headaches!" Apocalypse complained. "She is the reason he refuses to leave this mortal coil!" El Saba continued, "I kill her, my problem is solved."  
"You shall not do any such thing!" Sinister told, "I own you, I am the reason you have a body, I am reason you live! Leave the woman be, lest you desire death after so long you have lived!" Sinister finished.  
"The child is mine!" Apocalypse demanded. "You shall not deny me that!"  
"I could easily let on where you are, El Saba." Sinister grinned, knowing he held the trump card, and Apocalypse, nay more than a joker, "Professor Xaiver would love to find the man who destroyed his prize student, his son."  
"Point taken.. you shall not win this, Sinister. I can promise you this." Apocalypse threw. "I shall get what I want."  
There is nothing but silence in the cave, save the occasional tinkling of glass and the light breathing of a small woman in forced sleep upon a cold, and ungiving table. Life slowly growing from a man gone long ago taking root and three unwilling people in an unyielding compromise, Sinister was right. Some punishment is worse than death, that old cliché, Never really even set fear to anyone, however, I can't help but think, Whose punishment is this, and who is the executor?   
When do we have the right to die? ,   



	2. The Little Things

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men and I have no more goldfish, please don't sue me.  
  
  
  
The Little Things  
  
Jean Grey-Summers was only fiveteen when she met Scott. He was shy, nerdy and wore ungainly glasses  
  
that covered most of his face. Even his pictures looked sullen and angry; but, if you knew him, actually knew  
  
him the way she does, you would find out Scott Summers was the nicest boy, and he was a boy al those  
  
years ago, that would ever be. Everybody said the two of them belonged together, and it showed.   
  
The way Jean looked at Scott, and the way Scott looked at Jean, the love that the two had for eachother  
  
was infectious. Yes, other men or women had come between the pair every now and then, but their two  
  
hearts found eachother in the end. Scott was the shy kind, silent, thoughtful and for him to express  
  
how he felt took years. From then on, everything moved so fast, in some cases, too much  
  
and in others, not fast enough. Scott Summers was the driven kind, so driven he never stopped  
  
to coincider the price to himself, and that price came all too soon for a young couple just starting  
  
out in life.  
  
Because of this brash selflessness, many factors and parties associated with young Mr. Summers have come  
  
to take hold of his most prized asset, his wife, Jean. Her body is needed currently for something of an  
  
incubator. Her life has yet again been taken and replaced by a benevolent doppleganger, Maddie Pryor, one  
  
of the creations gone wrong by Mr. Sinister, one of the parties involved. Mr. Sinister, Nathanel Essex,  
  
has been interested in the Summers family line for well over a century and for that past time, he  
  
has worked on and off with a man by the name of El Saba Nur, known to all as the man Apocalypse.  
  
El Saba Nur is the man who sence Moses' time has lead fear into the hearts of men, the same man capable of  
  
stealing bodies and using them as his own, as a living host for his paracitic presence. This same thing is  
  
what happened to Scott Summers, his body inhabited by onother and everything that is him has resided  
  
in the depths of his own mind while El Saba depletes his body. Scott is dieing. In essence, all that knew him  
  
presumed him dead, all save Jean.   
  
You see, Scott and Jean share a deep and loving bond, as all lovers should. This bond, thanks to El Saba Nur and  
  
Sinister. They used Scott's body and defiled all that Jean Grey is, using  
  
the gift God gave all humans and made it filthy. Jean now carries the child needed by both men  
  
to carry out each ones insane plans. Jean is faced with a delema, the child that grows in her womb, formed in an unholy  
  
union is to be used for El Saba's new body, an undepletable host, then she gets her husband back.  
  
If she gets her husband back, Sinister will undoubtibly use Scott and Jean as breeding cattle, creating an army,  
  
if you will of untold of powerful beings.  
  
If she manages to keep the child, she loses her husband, she saves the world, yet again and she has to live with  
  
the knowledge that this child, while geneticly her late husband's was brought about by a man who wore his form  
  
and performed the actions while she was sedated in forced sleep. Story all told, she was raped by  
  
a body that was her husband's, but the mind was the man whom her family has repeatiatly destroyed through time.  
  
He hates her. Scott haunts her dreams, some would say that's how he contacts her from the icy prison of his mind.  
  
She wakes up after one of these dreams. No longer is she tied to a cold and ungiving steel table, but in a bed.  
  
Sinister has given her a bed and rein in part of his labs to ensure safety of the child he so desperatly  
  
has worked for, for so long. She is in her sixth month and her back hurts. Her feet have swollen and her breasts Scott  
  
had caressed so often, so long ago have begun to grow heavy.  
  
She rolls out of bed in search of a glass of water and with her unborn child's foot planted in her ribcage.  
  
"Scott's family always did have big feet, kiddo." she teases as she passes El Saba, whom has been appointed to guard her.  
  
He sneers at her wearing her dead husbands face, and she looks breifly to find any trace of the warmth that Scott once held.  
  
The cold grey skin that shades the once familiar face, and the fact that now quite litterally, Cyclops' body reflects  
  
that code name, she finds none.  
  
She walks by with a gesture of defiance, a childish one, but effective, she blows a raspberry and watches  
  
as El Saba's stolen eyes flair, but she knows Sinister would never allow her death. Anything up to that point, and she has sen it,  
  
but never will he allow her death. Her clone, his creation failed to yeild the fruit of the vine he had looked after so closely.   
  
She is his only chance. Her child is El Saba's only chance for life. She shall not die, she knows this.  
  
"Do not think I won't hesitate to kill you with your own child's body." El Saba threatens. " And I can just as easly take you again   
  
with your husband's." She ignores him. her "dead" husband has been feeding her information gleaned  
  
from El Saba's own mind to her about the compound. She knows that here, near her room, she cannot use her powers, should she find  
  
the one spot she can, she can contact helop, and if she can contact help, a way can be found to save her husband,  
  
the child and destroy what both of these evil men had built.  
  
  
Elswhere, another man, whom has also loved Jean Grey from the moment he met her is working.  
  
His mutant nose picked up on the fact that Maddie isn't Jean several months ago. He had been gone for weeks, and anybody  
  
who knew he visits Silverfox's grave in the laurels in the spring is good. Too good. They knew he wouldn't be there to pick up  
  
on the intrusion until after the interloper had gained some of Jean's own scent on her.  
  
Maddie was the first thought to his mind. No one quite understood Logan's abilities and while she had the skin deep scent  
  
of Jean's perfume, clothing and manners, she lacked something. Something deep and intimate. The deep and sensual feeling  
  
Jean and Jean alone stirred in him. Had she not insisted Scott was alive, he would have  
  
had her by now. The two share a bone deep friendship, one Maddie couldn't express, the scent she couldn't fake.  
  
Logan was on to her, now, how to tell the rest of the team without letting Maddie know he knew.   
  
Whomever she was working for was dangerous and chances are had Jean, and even more out there, would have Scott.  
  
"Good evening, Logan." The red haired wentch said smoothly as she placed her arms around him. Even her very mannorisms  
  
betrayed her, She was no Jean and at this moment, Logan had never been more  
  
grateful for all the self control he had learned in his army days nor for all  
  
the training Professor Xaiver had drilled into his head about hiding his thoughts.   
  
This woman represented all that he hated, and her twin, all he loved.  
  
"Darlin, take yer hands off me, or ain'tcha fergotten, yer a mArried woman?"  
  
Logan hissed as he remembered how soft Jean's loving arms are compared to Maddie's hard, unfeeling ones.  
  
"Scott's dead. You told me that, everybody say's that." Maddie lied through her teeth.  
  
"Ain't interested." Logan said back as he held his thoughts in check. "I'm goin to bed, don't follow."  
  
Maddie stands there wondering whats up with this man. All her sources told her that  
  
the woman she is impersonating and the gruff man she finds repulsive were lovers.  
  
She finds him repulsive, yes, however she is a woman who craves physical contact, any physical contact.  
  
She remembers when Jean was presumed dead, and Sinister had sent her to woo Scott Summers,  
  
he seldom got to rest, she thinks with a smile. Maddie hates Jean. Not just fo being first and foremost  
  
in Scott's heart, even when he was married to Maddie, but because she is all she ever wanted to be.  
  
When Jean came back, Scott fled to her, Maddie hated this more, Jean Grey is all she came from, and has everything she wants,  
  
all Maddie wants is for her to die. Sinister won't allow this, but Jean's life is Maddie's now, and she will use it as she sees fit.  
  
  
Back where Jean Grey-Summers is held captive, Sinister awakes with a start, something is wrong, but what?  
  
The woman, is she well? The monitor shows her sleeping again, that failure, Maddie, no.. that whore is probably picking on  
  
some unwilling companion. El Saba!   
  
Sinister reaches for his robes to find The body of Scott Summers, the one El Saba Nur had currently inhabited crashing through  
  
his doors. " The Summers entity grows strong! You promised you would stop the pain!" El Saba groans as he clutches the head of his  
  
unwilling host. "He has attempet to regain control many times!"  
  
"Has he done so?" Sinister asked.  
  
"Yes, for but a moment. He told the Grey Woman something, I regained control quickly." El Saba added.  
  
"I had to put her in her place."  
  
"Anything serious?" Sinister asked.  
  
"No major damage. Summers stayed my hand." El Saba said through teeth gritted in pain.  
  
"Does the body change back?" Sinister enquired. If the body doesn't change, a clone will be needed as host for Summers.  
  
A clone body would not suffice El Saba, he would deplete it in days.  
  
"I.. do not know. Make the pain stop, I emplore you!" EL Saba begged.  
  
"I shall in good time, El Saba." Sinister replied. "I shall see to Grey for tonight. You sleep."  
  
"But Summers!"  
  
"Sleep El Saba!" Sinister roared. "I shall fix the situation!"  
  
And that was all, The lab held silence save the tinkiling of glass and the mutterings of  
  
a man that held so much and yet nothing. Like the American king.  
  
The english man, Essex, must do battle with the mad man, Sinister,  
  
the same man, over the same situation that created Sinister from Essex.  
  
Will Sinister play the pieced on his board, or will Essex topple the playing feild?   



	3. A Moments Peace.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men and as an extra special present, please don't sue me, I'm already in debt up to  
  
my ears.  
  
  
A Moments Peace.  
  
"I can feel myself getting stronger by the day," Scott Summers managed to think to himself  
  
in the debths of his own mind. "It's almost like Jean is giving me pieces of herself to keep me alive."  
  
Scott Summers has been trapped in his own mind, robbed of his body by a paracite and forced to live in  
  
the cramped corners of all he once was. His body has been used for things Scott, "Cyclops" could never  
  
even think to do against another living soul, one of which included harming his own wife. The  
  
very reason he refuses to completely yeild his body to the other intrusive being.   
  
El Saba Nur, the other being currently possesing Scott's body has hated the Summers line for generations  
  
past and present torments Cyclops with one constant line of thought. "Could you imagion what she thought  
  
seeing the body of the man whom was surposed to love and protect her, break open a lip? Fill her with unwanted seed?  
  
the best part is, it was you. I mearly surpplied the thought and movement to your puppet limbs."  
  
Scott retaliates back by inducing mental pain excruciating to both men trappen together  
  
by this limp form of sculptured flesh.  
  
"I'm gaining more control over him every day, " Scott thinks. "My rapport with Jean may have something to do with it."  
  
The fact of the matter is, the more energy Jean expends to keep Scott alive, the less she has and the less her unborn child has.  
  
Even though the child was born of the worst possible useage of a man's body, her beloved husband's body, The child has done  
  
nothing wrong, and she would do anything to keep the innocent babe safe, Jean cannot "feed" Scott forever. Scott realises this,   
  
he understands the implications all too well. He was in his mind, fighting El Saba during the filthy act; however, Scott failed.  
  
Geneticly, this child is his and Scott is the father and would like wise do anything to save the child. Scott's memories float  
  
back to when Cable, Nathan was a baby and how the only thing Scott could do to save his son,  
  
was the painfull task of giving him up. Now the task may well to be lay down his life and die; but not until El Saba goes down with   
  
him.  
  
Scott practices his new found control, he moves a finger, then an arm and starts to form words while El Saba sleeps. The victory is short   
  
lived as El Saba awakens due to the intense pain. "Summers! Let be or I shall dispatch of the wentch you married!"  
  
Scott backs down for now, not because of fear, but for the energy it takes to do this, and he cannot  
  
dare tap Jean for more. He would never forgive her death, nor their child's.  
  
  
There has been times Summers doubted all he was capable of times he felt Jean could do better to move on,  
  
times he was too weak to go on and to close to give up.   
  
There has been time when Scott Summers tasted victory. GAining any sort of control over his body isn't a taste,  
  
it's a big mouthful of the sweetest things.  
  
Summers remembers what it was like to feel, to taste, to see, now he is stuck in the own sensory depravation  
  
of his own mind. Yes to see, taste and feel, Feel his wife's warmth on a cold night, see her naked form  
  
in the moon light and taste the dolce of her ever so missed kisses.  
  
He wants to hold the child that is so much a piece of them both, he wants a second chance to live, breathe, love.  
  
To live life the way he needed to, not what the world needed him to.  
  
The only thing he can do is hear. Thanks to the rapport he has with his loving wife, he can hear her thoughts,  
  
how much she tried to help him, he can hear El Saba and how much he enjoys hurting her.   
  
Scott stopped him once, that is how Scott, Cyclops came to know he can regain his body. Hearing his loving wife  
  
scream in agont drew him away from the black void of death, dispare, giving up.  
  
Scott was forced to hear El Saba use Scott's stolen body and force himself upon Jean, Cyclopses  
  
cherished wife. He prays thanks he hadn't had to watch it and Jean blocked the memories from her mind.  
  
To her, she was asleep, and not tied to a table to stop the clawing and thrashing.  
  
To spare her mental breakdown, even Sinister told her she slept. Why Scott may never know.  
  
"I'll have my body back, El SAba." Scott hissed.  
  
"That you shall, when the child is born." El Saba pushed as he undured the headache of Scott's presence. "Then you can deal  
  
with that wentch, If I let you live."  
  
"Don't talk about my wife like that!" Scott said as he gave El Saba another headache. "Essex wil never let you get away with this!"  
  
"I own Essex, you pest!" El Saba exclaimed.  
  
"Why are you doing this?" Scott demanded.  
  
"Your son Cable has vexed me through the centuries." El Saba said to ease the pain.  
  
"Your Daughter, Rachel ruined my empire, Your wife in her many forms has killed me many times and you gave  
  
your children the knowledge to take my life." El SAba finished. "I owe you."  
  
"You are targeting us for things that haven't happened yet, or are too late to stop." Scott argued. "Let Jean be."  
  
"I'd rather have scarabs burrow into my flesh as I walk barefooted across the blasing desert. I will see her death,  
  
then I shall have my world." El Saba said as he clutched his head that was not his.  
  
"Leave the child alone! What did that baby do to you!" Scott pushed.  
  
"That child was bred for my means!" El Saba yelled mentally under the barrage of torment.  
  
"That is a child, not cattle. You raped a woman and that child is the concequences." Scott pointed out with one last twist  
  
of the mental knife.  
  
"Leave me be tonight, Summers, and I shall leave be your wife." El SAba barganed  
  
"Beg me." Scott demanded.  
  
"El Saba does not beg."  
  
"Beg me Apocalypse." Scott said as he pained further.  
  
"I"  
  
"Now."  
  
"I.. Please, I beg you leave me be!" El Saba caved.  
  
"You never spare Jean when she asked." Scott menaced. " She's bearing our child. You better be nice."  
  
"I will! Please, leave me to rest!"  
  
And Scott stopped. He stopped and he planned for now he has a way to fight back, if he doesn't fight back,  
  
all is lost. Once, the fate of many people rested in the womb of a scared, small woman,   
  
upon the head of an unborn babe, now it rests squarely upon the shoulders of a man, one who had nothing,  
  
gave all he has and now he reaps the benifits and holds the trump card of the ultimate gamble.  
  
Elsewhere  
  
"Chuck, I am one hundred percent sure that ain't Jeannie!!" Logan explained. "I know it's funny,  
  
but she just ain't right. Those eyes aren't right."  
  
"I believe you Logan, we knew the moment she arrived, however, whoever has Jean,  
  
is a professional. They do not want her found." Xaiver put his hand up to calm Logan down.  
  
"So we just let her rot wherever she is?" Logan grew angrier.  
  
"I have no other choice, Logan, I've exhausted all means to find her." Professer explained.  
  
"We'll get her back."  
  
"Ya shoulda got me ta look, Chuck." Logan threw.  
  
"I'm afraid that wasn't an option." Xaiver said. "You were gone for a month, no evidence left."  
  
"That ain't all, is it Chuck." Logan stated. "Just spill it."  
  
"There has been some noted activity on Cyclops' brain wave frequency." He said.  
  
"And there has been times where it seems as though someone is trying very hard to contact me."  
  
"Yer telling me the Boy Scout's alive." Logan said.  
  
"Yes, I know you love Jean, but her heart goes to Scott first, I didn't want you hurt." Xaiver said.  
  
"I just want her back here safe. I'll see what I need to do." Logan said.  
  
"Logan, please, wait." Xaiver said. "Let me try more, If you die, you're no help to her."  
  
Xaiver contenued. "Scott does not seem to be doing well, from what little I could sence, far to little  
  
to tell from where, He and Jean are sharing the same energy. They could both be dead at any time."  
  
"This is surposed to make me not want to find them?" Logan asked.  
  
"If you enterfere, you could drain them instantly of the energy that could last them months, in minutes.  
  
"Xaiver told Logan. "Please, let me find a way."  
  
"Two weeks, then I find them and bust that party up. Ya got me?"Logan said.  
  
"I understand." XAiver answered.  
  
A lone figure watched over the house, one with teeth and fangs, one that lives to kill. He was sent by another to  
  
watch with the promise of ruining any happiness his arch-enemy may feel. A woman scorned decades ago uses him as her tool.  
  
This new information lend light to the dark, brooding thoughs that rage through this mad man's mind. Jean Grey-Summers will  
  
be found, not by help but by a man who wished her screaming. Screaming so hard, she gurgles her own blood from her burst throat.  
  
"I gotcha." he said as he ran to find his new hunting quarry. 


	4. Niether Created Nor Destroyed

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men, please don't sue me, however, if you can tell me when Cyclops  
actually came back, I'd be much abliged.  
  
I havn't picked up a comic sence the movie came out, so I don't really even know what's going on in them now,  
however, this matter has sharpened my interest in fanfiction and anyone whom for  
any reason would like to use any of my stories as a base, all the more power  
to you.  
  
Yer ol' pal, The Bud.  
  
  
Niether Created Nor Destroyed.  
  
"Sinister," a pained El Saba asked the tinkering sientist."What is this contraption you are toying with,  
  
instead of ridding me of this Summers pest?"  
  
"It is a battery, Apocalypse." Sinister said before returning to his work. "Do not stand on that."  
  
"You are surposed to be working of finding me a suitable telepath to get rid of this acursed headache." El Saba complained.  
  
"Why do you bother me?" Sinister growled.   
  
"Why do you force me to suffer Scott Summers?" El Saba boomed.  
  
"I forced you to suffer nothing!" Sinister retorted. "You are the one who acquired  
  
that body! You are the the one who chose poorly and you are the one who came to me, groveling for help!"  
  
"You are right." El Saba sighed. "What about the Grey woman?"   
  
"What about her?" Sinister, Nathanel Essex asked. "I had heard you had been rough with her again. She is almost at her  
  
time. You need to stop."  
  
"It is her fault, the agrevating wentch." El Saba said as he clutched his burning head. "Make this stop, Essex!"  
  
"I hope you enjoy that, El Saba." Sinister smiled. "If that child is harmed because of you, I shall not honour  
  
the bargan we struck for your life."   
  
Essex looked around to hide the pain welled in his eyes. Sinister lost two of his own children, two sons, his darling Adam,  
  
and his child never named, the one whose birth and death claimed his wife, sweet Rebecca's life.  
  
He refuses, even being the evil man he morphed to be, he refuses to take an innocent's life.  
  
"She has become more defiant, you need to handle her." El Saba said. "The woman is out of control."  
  
"She is carring a child we forced on her!" Sinister yelled as he smote El Saba across his stolen face. "Never tell me what to do again!"  
  
"You do not want to harm this precious body, Sinister." El Saba said as he used the upper hand he held as a rare jewel. "You  
  
are not the noble knight you have pretended to become over these last few months."   
  
Then silence. Nothing. Sinister just returns to his work, oblivious to El Saba's internal struggle.  
  
  
Jean Grey-Summers. She is a woman who has seen pain in her days and she knows her day is comming soon. Her stomache strains  
  
against her skin and the purplish marks now adourning her belly spider about on her tender flesh. She has a constant hunger, a gnawing,  
  
for what, she cannot place. Freedom, maybe? She knows she doesn't want her child born in a sterile and lifeless enviroment, rather, she would  
  
have familiar hands and voices surround her as a new life breathes a first breath. Her own breathing has become harder these days.  
  
She has been feeding her husband, Scott, energy through a psychic link through out her pregnancy, her child born through purloined seed.  
  
He had told her to stop, but she wouldn't. She was so sure she could save enough for him, and sustain the baby, she was right, she could;but, she forgot  
  
one factor, herself. As her husband, and her child grow stronger, she weakens. She has weaked so much, she can hardly defend herself against  
  
El Saba, as he uses her husband's body to take out his fustrations on her. Had Scott not enterveined, she feels she wold have been dead.  
  
"Where is Sinister?" She wonders. "Does he know?"  
  
Mr. Sinister, the man whom had watched her family grow for over a century, one of the X-Men's most confusing enemy. Is he good? Is he bad?  
  
Does he just have different means of reaching the same goals that her beloved Xaiver has? The Morlock tunnels, she could never forgive,  
  
and mayby, Maddie was his way of making sure Scott wasn't alone, sort of a new Eve, for lack of better word. But he knew Phoenix wasn't her, is this why  
  
Maddie was so,.... dispenseable.   
  
Jean Grey-Summers knows her time is near, and almost up. Death is the absence of all life, Life cannot come from  
  
death, Death, however can come from life. Jean Grey is a religious woman, and in hers, Death was caused by synne,  
  
right now, as pain once again grips her belly, she wonders what synne she had done to make the process so painfull.  
  
She has "died" before, rather suffered "deep comatic healing processes" after she saved the lives of those she loved most,  
  
during the cosmic storm where the power of Phoenix came and left her healing on the hudson river floor. Phoenix had resumed  
  
Jean's life, perhaps, the same, jean surmised Maddie is doing now. No one, not even the man she fights so hard to keep alive  
  
now knew Phoenix was not Jean. Immortality cannot be begat from mortality, Phoenix was no different. "Maddie," Jean thinks.  
  
"Maddie would have been noticed the moment she entered the mansion grounds. Why haven't they come for me?" She wonders.  
  
  
Why Haven't They?  
  
"They" The X-Men have come, and "They" have gone. With people as Storm, Gambit and Wolverine on the team,  
  
"They" could have come and gone many times and leave little more than the faintest mental whisper.  
  
Psylocke, child of the shadowes, a shattered mind in the wrong body, stitched from two fragmented halves, yet, still whole,  
  
still sentient, so beautiful, still deadly, she used the dark to move in and set up for the kill.  
  
She uses these "shadowes" as instant teleportation, she brought others many times along for the ride into this dark  
  
and foreboding place. People like Gambit.  
  
GAmbit, the eternal tall, dark, and handsome that leaves people with weaked knees and drool trailing  
  
down reddened cheeks as he steals hearts and whatever else catches his fancy. He comes to claim hearts, even the hardest  
  
locked ones, and manages to pick them open and walk away with a wallet. He found the plans, the layout to this fortress  
  
a lond time ago, and uses them now. Sinister never changes, and he never packed up his Nebraska hideout, his mistake.  
  
Psylocke also brought Storm.  
  
Her Nom de gurre says it all. She is a vision to behold. Dark skin contrasted by  
  
ivory white hair and pale blue eyes. Reagality found in a woman nearly six feet tall and  
  
capable of getting what ever she wants. She wants her best friend back, and Jean is hers.  
  
Storm is smart, the streets were her home before she was a queen, and then an X-Man.  
  
She can steal your breath away as well as take it. She heard Cyclops lived, she owes him the chance  
  
to contenue, and finds honour to do so, however, she would find honour in his memory too should asked.  
  
If he is too far gone, all hehas to do is ask, and it shall be no more.  
  
Then, There is Logan, Wolverine.  
  
Wolverine has loved Jean sence the first day he met her. To find Scott may still be alive tore him apart,   
  
to find that a doppleganger had taken her place enraged him and after many late escursions servailing   
  
Sinisters lair, and seeing what was Scott's body strike Jean down, nearly made him lose it.  
  
"How much longer must we do this before we can get Jeannie outta there?!" He wonders. The last vision  
  
he sees at night now is Jean's big green eyes welled with tears, and his last thought is, "Another woman  
  
is in her bed." And how he can't do anything about it... Yet. Wolverine is the brains behind this operation,  
  
Xaiver calls the shots. Logan will get Jean back, ever if he can't have her back.   
  
  
Yes, "They" have come, but "They" Cannot simply pick her up, and pluck her away, Sinister has made sure of that.  
  
When the X-Men had seen Jean's problem, her growing womb, they knew there was more to the whole situation and  
  
that she was in no condition to fight, and the transmitter placed on her ankle prevnts her from leaving. A nurodisrupter,  
  
It won't kill her, but chances are, she'll be little more than a vegitable if she's moved. Wolverine won't chance that,  
  
he had to find another way, and he may have.  
  
Beast, by far the most intellegent of the X-Men devised a battery device, One that can use a  
  
persons energy to run adinfinium on the amount of energy created by one person  
  
on one life time. There's only one problem, the person would die, therefore no voulenteers.  
  
But this is how it works, Apocalypse is a being of energy, and because energy  
  
is niether created, nor destroyed, Apocalipse live forever. The only thing is,  
  
he has to have a host body to keep from that evergy being transfered to other things.  
  
No body, he tears apart.  
  
Because of Gambit's past relations, Gambit was used to "sell" this information to Sinister.  
  
The promise of an eternal energy source was found appealing, so Sinister agreed to shut the  
  
transmitter down for one hour, and one hour alone. The rest was up to Wolverine.  
  
  
Scott.  
  
"Sinister's up to something and El Saba knows it." Scott thought to himself. A man with no lips certaintly cannot  
  
talk to himself, but he's closer ever day to getting his body back. He see's his wife struggling through eyes that  
  
were once his own. He see's her dieing, his child, his child he knows to be a son, living, Growing, but into what?  
  
Growing oblivious to what he will be born into. A world that will hate him for his mutant genes, if he's normal,  
  
growing to hate his "tainted" parents. If El Saba gets his way, never having life at all, his body the whim of nother.  
  
Will he know how he was concieved? Will he then grow to hate himself? There has got to be a way to  
  
save the child, even if it means he, himself never lives again.  
  
Scott Sumers starts to think about his body and what he knows. His body acts as one well focused  
  
solar panel, the Sun fuels him and his optic blasts. Down here, there is no sun, thus no optic blasts and  
  
El Saba seems to like this better.  
  
Optic blasts require energy, Jean used to tease Scott about how much he ate, and still managed to be  
  
so wirey. Everyone used to call him "Slim" because of his muscular, yet slender build. El Saba is  
  
energy, Scott's body, had it access to the sun, would basicly canablise El Saba. It wasn't even untill Scott stayed  
  
indoors more often that he started to gain weight, sun resistant clothes, sunscreen, the whole nine yards to keep his blasts  
  
under control, but the meager amount he had spent outside sent his body into hyperbolic mode.  
  
Scott still only weighs less than two hundred pounds, and thats not alot for a six foot- three man. "I wonder,"  
  
he thought, "I havn't been outside in months, If I can take my body over for just five minutes,  
  
and get outside," his thoughts contenued." Without clothes, my body would fry itself out in seconds, nothing  
  
left of El Saba and nothing left for him to use." Then he came to reality.  
  
"Jean would be alone." he thought. "Our life together would be over." His thought sombered. "I don't always have to play marter."  
  
He had always played marter, hadn't he. Always the first to go, when he can beat Wolverine to it,  
  
Always the first to voulenteer his life. Always Cyclops. Never Scott Summers. "Jean needs me. I always do this,  
  
I expect her to carry on without me and yet, I can't do it myself." Scott thought as he  
  
looked towrds the room that held his best friend, his lover, his wife. "There has got to be another way."  
  
Another Way  
  
"Why would Gambit give me the plans to such a wonderful device, for such a cheap price?" Sinister pondered as he worked.  
  
"El Saba," He pictured. "Started life as a pharo's slave, and will end it as mine, but what are the X-Men up to?"  
  
Sinister thinks as he tinkers. "I have interest only in the child, with El Saba out of the way, the child is mine,  
  
Summers is mine, my plans come to order,"He put out as he tighted hold on a lug. "Xaivers well fall through, crumbled, destroyed in my clentched  
  
fist. Not at all what I wanted."   
  
Sinister can be a puzzling man, even in the days of Darwin, he was an outcast for his outlandish predictions, especcially the rise  
  
of mutants. Much like the therories Darwin was said to have, only in a fraction of the time. Fiveteen minutes all in good standing, a night if you're  
  
lucky.  
  
"I wanted to see how mutants came to be, take strong seed and make it stronger, a choice flock of all varitys to come from two."  
  
Sinister prattled to himself about genetics and dominate and resessive genes. Any half wit high school student knows that mutations,  
  
"Sports" are niether dominate, nor resessive, they just show up whenever they want to, most mutated embryos die, thus the genes do not pass on,  
  
What if only the potental was found at birth, a slight chemical imballance that after many years and the introduction of estrogen and testosterone,  
  
compounded the first chemical and thus mutated cells quicker, much as a virus does.  
  
All known mutants are born with this chemical "virus" including El Saba, "El Saba is a virus." Sinister put together. "What if I introduced  
  
a chemical that laywayed Scott Summers chemical imballance for a small time, his body would deject El Saba," Sinister surmised.  
  
"A painfull process that may leave Summers, .... normal, for a time, and unable to fight the TO virus Stryfe induced in his  
  
blood stream ages ago against his knowldge, but El Saba would be mine, the child saved and Summers free to procreate."  
  
Thus the plan was formed and the "disinfectant" was put upon the drawing board.  
  
REbecca.  
  
Rebecca Essex. She was a woman who lived a long time ago, and knew Scott and Jean before they were even born.  
  
She loved a driven man who treated her as a pet in a cage. Her hair was of darkest blaque  
  
and her eyes danced of mischeif. Her son, Adam, had passes away at the tender age of two, that is when she  
  
mentally lost her beloved husband, Nathanel. Adam had flaxen hair, unlike ither parent, but he so looked like  
  
Nathanel. Young, and frail, he died, she was told he passed of a blood desease. Nathanel was sure it was his genes.  
  
Later, he was extatic to hear, she had conceived again. How he hoped so for a girl, one with fire red hair as his mother's  
  
had been, but he knew this wasn't possible. "How do you know, Nathanel?" she had asked, he never answered her. She was a woman,  
  
and presumed to frail to hear such things. Nathanel grew more distant as the months passed.  
  
He never even would help choose names for the baby. His mind left him at times, as well did his temper.  
  
Then one day, he started bringing strange things to his old estate, but he wasn't so gone as to trample the stones of the   
  
family grave yard, and no one was to touch Adam's. She would bring Adam's grave flowers, and Nathanel approved.  
  
She was alone so often, so cold and alone in that big house without him there. She never had the will to disobey his orders about  
  
his "experiments" that is until one day, she received a visit. A red haired woman appeared one day looking for her lost husband.  
  
"Strange woman." Rebecca thought. "She looks too much like Nathanel's mother." They talked for awhile, and then Rebecca  
  
gathered the courage to get her questions answered.  
  
She went to Nathanel's lab and saw Adam, in some tank.. her dead son floated silent in some liquid.  
  
Maybe she was too fragile to know such things, maybe her mind was playing tricks she thought as her legs carried her  
  
to the barn for a shovel and then to where she thought her dear Adam lay entombed under the earth and new grass.  
  
She dug, far more work than she's used too, far more than a woman in her condition should have done. Pain far more intense than  
  
the first time she gave life grew in her troubled womb, as her child, she sensed, stopped moving, stopped kicking, stopped everything  
  
and she bled. She bled untill she felt faint, yet she still dug and when she reached the wooden coffin, nothing. Nothing at all, her  
  
husband was more the monster so many had claimed he was.  
  
Rebecca didn't know how she got back to the house, the red haired woman perhaps, perhaps not, she was small.   
  
too small perhaps to carry a woman of Rebecca's size. All she knew was the sovern face of a doctor comming into veiw between  
  
periods of pitch blaque darkness as he pronounced her child dead, this and her husband rushing in, worried. She called him Sinister,  
  
and died.   
  
This is what Mr.Sinister remembers. This is how he mourns his wife still after nearly two hundred years. This  
  
is what he reflects on when he remembers his brash desision to lose his humanity to the man known as El Saba.  
  
Nathanel Essex feels robbed and he will get his payment, even though he can gain no satisfaction. Rebecca,  
  
tomorrow, so very long ago, could she ever have forgiven?  
  
  
Puppets and Judies.  
  
"El Saba," Sinister asked when the mid day sun had reached it's brightest. "Please come here, I believe I know how to.. help you."  
  
"What is it you want, Sinister?" El Saba asked impatently. "I see you took a break from your battery."  
  
"Actually the battery has a large part in helping you." Sinister added with a smile. "Do you know what today is?"  
  
"I haven't time for your riddles, Sinister." El Saba spat. " Just tell me."  
  
"Today is the anniversary of my dear Rebecca's death." He said. " Did you harm Jean Grey last night?" Sinister asked.  
  
"What does this have to do with me, Sinister?" El SAba asked wary. "And yes, she bit my hand."  
  
Sinister just laughed his british laugh. "Today my good man is our annaversary to, the day I became Sinister, and  
  
as luck would have it, it is the annaversay of your death too!" Sinister finished with a flair  
  
as he pushed a switch. "Goodby!"  
  
"Nooooooooo!" El Sabe yelled as a brilliant stream of light filled the dank room and reflected off the many  
  
surfaces of the chamber within. Sounds of pain, half El Saba and half Scott Summers resonated through the air  
  
as Scott's body began to burn and consume itself as his optic blasts blew out of control.   
  
El Saba shreiked as Scott forced him out of his body and Sinister shut the window to the solar furnace  
  
that burned Scott so badly. El Saba was out in the open and a small static pull forced him into the sealed  
  
vaccuum chamberthat reduced El Saba to nothing more than an eternal running circut.  
  
"Summers? Are you still alive?" Sinister asked of the man on the floor.  
  
Losing Summers would prove devestating to all of Sinisters plans. A groan sufficed as an answer  
  
as the X-Men melted from the shadowes thanks to Psylocke, to collect their fallen team mates.  
  
"Sinister, ya know we ain't friends; but, how can we thank you?"Wolverine asked as Beast began to bandage  
  
Scott's torn body.  
  
"You can't." Sinister said. "I believe Jean is in the other room, she will bear a child soon."  
  
"What about Maddie?" Wolverine asked.  
  
"Bring her here. There is aught else to do with her." Sinister commanded.  
  
"Es.. Essex..."Scott choked through his charred lungs. " Th thank you for giving me my life back  
  
How do I repay you?" He hacked.  
  
"Don't.. Just know I will be back. You will be fine." Sinister turned around to teleport.  
  
"Scott?" He asked.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Name the child Adam." And Sinister was gone, his lab was gone and the battery was gone. All that was left  
  
was an old Nebraska orphanage and a distinct Cajun voice yelling out "Ah got Cheri, We need to  
  
high tail outta here, der some weird bomb talking to me saying we got about one minute!"  
  
And they where gone, Poof! Through the shadow portals and into home as Scott Summers'  
  
childhood melted into the muck that became symbolic of so many childeren's lives that lived in that old building.  
  
Home.  
  
"One push, Jeannie!" Beast yelled through sweat sodden fur as Jean Grey Summers screamed what so many   
  
women do as they give birth. The deep and primal "Gruuuuurrraah!" that so many men never experiance the pain to yell.  
  
"HE's a boy!" Beast yelled as the child gave his first cry.  
  
She gave birth to a mirical, next to her husband, in a hospital surrounded by friends  
  
just hours after being returned. El Saba had broken her arm, and blackened her eyes the night before  
  
and now, none of that matters to her now. A son, her restored husband's son, the one she thought she would never  
  
have.  
  
"What is his name?" Beast asked. "I always thought Henry was a good one."  
  
"John?" Jean said exausted. "After my father?"  
  
"John? Any complaints?" Beast said? "No? Ok.."  
  
"No!" Scott coughed through his bandages. "Adam, please name him Adam."  
  
"Scott?" Jean asked. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Please Jean, for me?" Scott pleaded as he strained to see her.  
  
"I.. Anything for you Scott." Jean smiled as she mentally kissed her husband and fell asleep.  
  
"Jean?" Scott asked worried. "Jean? Henry? Is she ok?"  
  
"She's tired Scott, I'll explain it all to you when you're better." Beast said as he checked her pulse.  
  
"I think we owe Sinister more than we know."  
  
"You're telling me Sinister kept Jeannie alive so she could keep Scott alive?" Wolverine asked as he  
  
and Beast left the room.  
  
"Yes." Beast said. "But for what reason?"  
  
"I dunno, Beast." Wolverine sighed before resuming to watch duty. "I'm just glad to have those two crazy kids back."  
  
"You still love her?" Beast asked.  
  
"A man can dream." Wolverine replied as he turned and walked away.  
  
"A man can dream."  
  
The End. 


	5. Chapter 5

Just so you, the reader know, if you don't already, I don't own this.

This is a story that I started almost twelve years ago, my oldest son is ten, and so, you get the picture.

"The Universe Has Its Own Healing Factor."

_Three Years Later_.

"Jean!" The once fearless leader of this rouge band of mutants exasperates at his flame haired and tempered team mate and wife. "Why are you here? I've told you!" Jean knows what it is he's told her. She knows what he's going to say next because she's heard it over and over again for the past three years since Adam was born and the past two after Rachel was. "I want only one of us in battle at a time, what would happen to the kids if we both were killed, kidnapped or hurt?" Bla Bla Bla. "Who's watching the kids? Where are the kids?" Bla Bla Bla. Before she can shout her answer over the roaring whirrs and clangs of the machines and the high pitch of the red lasers shooting their way and in the air around her, raising smoldering dibbits in the dirt and grass around Scott, she sees him stop and fall to his knees in horrible pain. "Scott!" She knows she had to have shouted, her lungs burning from the smoke and fire around her, and she breaks protocol to check on him. Emma, the newer arrival on the team is already at his side, cradling him like a lover crying over him. The sight rattles her, and she knows why. Just like when she was first possessed by the Phoenix entity, Scott craves new emotions and thrills since En Saba Nur had possessed him. She tries to shake the uneasiness off ineffectively. "Has he been hit?" Jean telepathically asks her blond teammate a bit stupidly. She instantly knows what's happened through their faded rapport. Scott was always so worried about one of them dying in battle, but a heart attack? Scott is only in his somewhere twenties, he's stressed out but he's fit. "Emma!" Jean takes over position as field leader for her fallen husband. "Contact Hank, I'll throw a T.K. field over Scott!" The pink glow from her field reflects off the smoke and Emma's diamond form, giving the aria an odd pallor. She breathes to calm herself for a moment and then contacts Storm. "I've noticed a crack in the machines exoskeleton from where Scott had blasted through. You may be able to freeze the circuits long enough for Hank to get Scott out of here."

"Understood." The white haired beauty replies back over the link. Storm, as ever present minded she is, completes her task, being careful not to dwell on her fallen teammate, sparring partner and friend. She is battle minded and is a warrior, dwelling would cause lives. The ice she creates crackles through the air as Iceman assists, almost cutting through the battles heat, leaving wisps of fog swirling between the hot and so very cold.

"Scott, can you still hear me?" Jean sends softly through to his mind. He responds weakly, and a little late, almost as though he was in conference with someone else, but she can't think about that now. She has to get him out of here and alive. Then she'll kill him.

_Five Days Later_.

The air was still and damp and almost felt harder to breathe now than it did five days ago. The stench of the acrid Salem dirt manages to marry with that of the fallen rain and the perfume of the flowers brought by the dozens from the mourners. Deborah, Scott's grandmother walks gingerly with the children over to Corsair and Hezibeth, Scott's father and step-mother. "He should have lived. After all of this, what we've gone through, he could have lived." Jean thinks to herself watching the "other" widow cry harder than she herself had yet. She just couldn't believe that Scott was dead yet. How could he be? The heart attack wasn't as bad as first feared, he even survived the stint, but post surgery, he got an infection. His infection spread rapidly, in just a day, after just a day he was gone. Gone again, just like that. Sinister couldn't be found, not even by Gambit. Logan's blood donation, thank God for O negative people, didn't work. Beast takes this personally, rotting in his lab, pouring over every medical article he can to see where things went wrong but, her own powers did little for him, almost like the infection was tailor made for him, to function this way, but why? A large, loving hand brings her out of her morbid thoughts and holds her to his chest to just let her cry. "It's O.K Red. Just let it out." She knows the smell instantly and for a moment, just a moment lets herself feel safe and warm. "I told him he'd be fine, Logan." She squeaks out as she bawls finally.

She knows Scott's death hasn't hit her yet. She knows when it does she'll be lucky to even function. For her children, she's got to. She's got no choice but to. Then, her thoughts turn to Emma. Jean knows the secret kept between her, Scott and Emma. Emma has no one to comfort her and understand. Emma has no one to commiserate with over her own plight and condition, save maybe Jean. Emma has resources, so raising the child won't be a problem, but soon, everyone will know, and few would have anything comforting to say after what had been allowed to happen here. Jean can't help but feel a flash of anger towards the bottle blonde woman. Jean wasn't even with her own husband when he died. Emma was though. Because she was in Scott's room, Jean couldn't bring herself to go in, not again. Scott nearly had had another heart attack when he found out Jean knew about Emma. The topic came up not so lightly in his recovery room. The kids had wanted to see their father and normally kids are not allowed in, but Hank made an exception for Adam and Rachel. Emma was there, and perhaps Jean should have knocked. Perhaps she was walking in on Emma popping the good news, or bad depending, but either which way, the woman was kissing Jean's husband.

Jean, being the hot-headed woman she is, refused to talk to him again. She couldn't even look at him as she tried to heal him. Maybe because of this, she didn't try hard enough, maybe she didn't think clearly enough. She regrets not saying something, anything to him. She shouldn't have left things like this. Not that long ago, but what seems forever ago, a whole life time ago, in reality, just three packed full years, they fought for each other to live. She selflessly put herself aside to save him, and he almost died, nearly destroying his body for her and their then unborn son, Adam. Adam. Adam looks just like his father, even acts like him. What is Adam going to do now without his constant companion, his one true playmate, his daddy? Rachel is closer to Jean, she is all about everything mommy, but Adam needs his father. As much as Jean hates to admit it, so does she.

"Jeannie?" She hears the gruff voice calling her name, must be the third time and he's just getting her out of her mind wandering funk. "There you are." Logan says as he tips her chin upward to face him. "You can't beat yourself up about this. You couldn't have done more than what you did for him. Some things happen, no matter what." She should answer him, she shouldn't be this comforted in his arms, and she shouldn't have felt so alone these past few months. She has to push herself away from Logan. It's just not right, not now, not ever. "I'm sorry, Logan. Thank you for listening to me, but, I've got to go. Adam and Rachel need me right now." she smiles as she politely pushes him away. "Any time girl." he half smiles back as he returns the daggers Emma looks at him back.

"She's just lost her husband." Emma hisses at him. Perhaps through jealousy, perhaps her hormones are getting the better of her, or even perhaps through genuine concern. "Have a little self respect, Logan." He looks at her for a moment, her condition just starting to show. He stops himself from pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of her statement; he stops himself from being snarky with her as he would normally do. She's lonely and afraid right now and right now, she just needs one good friend in all this mess. "We're all in this together, Blondie." He brusquely replies as he puts an umbrella over her head and an arm around her shoulder fatherly. "I don't know what's going on here, but we're family and if you wanna talk, I'm here for you too."

_Thirteen Years Later_

"You are not my father!" Adam Summers shouts in the face of the man who helped raise him; His brown hair hanging slightly to his brown, defiant eyes. His hand hands clenched into fighting positions taught to him by the very man he opposes. His fifteen year old sister and his thirteen year old half sister watch sighing at how often this very fight erupts as they eat breakfast. "You just can't get everything YOUR way, Adam!" The much older man bellows. "Just how many times do we gotta go through this, boy!" The Younger man balks at him. "So, just what are you going to do now Old man! Run off again half-cocked? Do your little berserker dance? What does Mom see in you?" The two get in nose to nose, the spit spraying from both sides as almost seems neither is really in the fight for the meaning, but just for the adrenaline rush of the fight. "I Just wanted to spend the day teaching you some of the hand to hand I learned in the army, you need to learn these things Adam! You can't rely that there's always someone to get your back!" Logan growls. "Every time I come over here, Rachel, those two are fighting. I'm beginning to think they like it." Emmy whispers to her sister. "My Mom says that's what Logan and Dad were like." "They were." Rachel replies as she drinks the milk out of her cereal bowl. "I'd swear I was watching home movies from before I was born. Here comes my mom."

"What is this over this time?" Jean wearily asks as she steps in to stop her son and her new husband from killing each other. "Uhg. I don't even want to know. Adam, go get ready for school. Logan, just go do whatever it is you do!" Adam stares Logan down before replying. "It's Saturday, Mom." He shrugs off her T.K. field and gives her a kiss on the cheek, watching Logan the whole way. "I'm going to the Danger Room to exercise, I'll be home later. Love you." He leaves with his trademark charmer smile and a wave. "I'd swear that kid's the ever living reincarnation of his father, if he didn't have your stubborn streak" Logan blusters as he settles down to eat. "And Darlin' you know what I do and you know what I do best." he winks at her with an impish grin. "Oh! Gross!" both girls groan. "I'm outta here Mom! Emmy and I are going with some girls from Xavier's to go shopping." Rachel scoops up her bowl and spoon disgusted. "Who's the adult going with you?" Jean asks as she tussles her daughters fire red hair and Emmys blond head. "Rouge and Gambit are taking Oscar and Becky clothes shopping. May we have some money?" The girls leave as Jean and Logan settle into the morning. "Logan, Adam is not Scott! He's a sixteen year old boy! This just can't keep going on!" She fusses as her red, curly hair falling out of its pony tail and her running clothes still damp with perspiration as she slinks into her hands. "Look. I know it's hard for you, but think about how hard it is for Adam. When he says he's exercising, he is, but he's in there sparring against the hologram of his father, testing himself against him, really trying to see how he stacks up against him. Remember, just the same as Scott did with you?" She sighs as she pours herself a cup of coffee.

"Jeannie, don't you think I know all of this?" Logan responds acceptingly as he pulls her to him and places his arms around her. "I'm worried one of these days he'll be smart enough to put together two and two together and start delving into the time around his birth. He idolizes Scott, what's he going to do when he wants his questions answered or actually dares to go down to Beasts lab? He'll be lost altogether for awhile and I wanna be there for him. This ain't like when he was ten, Jeannie, remember how he followed me around like a lost puppy? Remember how let me teach him how to fish? I miss that kid." He nuzzles into the crook of her shoulder warmly. "He doesn't get what he means to me."

"Logan, I know you had the deepest respect for Scott. Even throughout the differences the two of you had, but Adam is becoming a man, he's going to rebel against you. Adam has a great respect for you Logan, he loves you, actually he still carries the picture of the two of you fishing. The one where you took him to Canada and he caught that salmon all by himself; remember?" She plays delicately with the hair on his big hands. "The fact of the matter is, he's sixteen and doesn't want to be defined by his parents as to whom he is. Please don't take it personal and please lower the volume when you two male posture. I could hear you two all the way over at the school. I'm going to go shower and get this sweat off of me."

"Not yet Red."

_Danger Room_

The air is stiff and hot and the floor so scorching that it feels like the pavement is melding with his shoes and cooking his feet alive. He stands staunch, his feet apart and hands clenched in fists by his side. He's clad in a replica of his father's gold and blue uniform and he's ready. "Get out here old man!" He shouts his challenge as the dense smoke reveals twin glowing orbs through the haze. A fully functioning copy of his deceased father's form becomes visible as it raises a hand to the red lined visor adorning the handsome face. "Not this time Cyclops!" he shouts as he rushes the figure firing his own optic blasts at will as he picks up debris along the way, charging the items with his own energy and hurling the objects at his opponent, briefly incapacitating him and giving the young Summers the upper hand as he uses a sweeping kick that Wolverine taught him to bring the automaton down to the ground, thinking, pausing just long enough to believe what he's done to be caught in the machines eye beam and blasted though a construct and to the other side of the Danger Room. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" he thinks as he curses himself for not thinking strait and rolls to a covered position to catch his foe unaware. The machine is quiet for now, looking for Adam to finish this fight. Sometimes, it will talk; something Adam wishes to believe that that was what his father sounded like. It's almost comforting to him, he was so young when Dad passed, he can really remember him at all hardly. He wasn't blessed with Rachel or his mother's flawless memory. The only man he even remembers as being a father to him, well things changed when Logan married Adam's mother. Something just wasn't the same, Logan never changed towards him, Mom and he saw each other for a really long time before hand, even when everyone thought he was going to end up with Emmy's mother. Adam knows Logan loves his mother to the point if anything happened to her, it would rend his soul. All this thinking's about to get his ass kicked. "You're not getting me this time!" he shouts as he dodges a crimson band of energy, destroying his hiding place. "You wanna bet?" the thing yelled as it twisted with it slim, muscular body to fire off another shot at the young man.

The Danger Room override light switches on in nearly the same red as Cyclops optic blasts as Adam shoots at it mistakenly as all the holograms and machines disappear back to where they came with a whoosh as Emmy walks in. "Adam, you can't be mad that he's gone. I never knew him, remember?" Her blonde hair hanging strait to her shoulders, almost making her look more like Katherine Summers than Emma Frost. "You can't kill yourself over a memory." She crouches down next to her big brother to check his scrapes. "Emmy, I don't remember Dad. I want to, but I can't. I keep having nightmares of some thing that looks like him, distorted, but it's him, hurting my mother. This helps me push those thoughts away. It feels good to tell somebody this finally!" he breaths as he stands up with the help of his little sis. "My mom can help you Adam, if you don't want to talk to yours even though yours is really good to talk to." She suggests. "Or Logan can show you meditation? Or I can take you to Dr. McCoy?" "Emmy, you are too smart." He smiles his smile at his kid sister. "Dr. McCoy was one of Dads best friends. I think I'll start there."


	6. Chapter 6

Just as you've seen in previous chapters, I disclaim ownership of this.

Where Did This Go Wrong?

There was just the slight humming of fluorescent lighting that perhaps was long due for changing when Adam entered Beasts lab for the first time. The place was immaculate, everything seemed just like what he'd have thought, had a teenager to give much thought to these things, except there was not a layer of dust as would be thought of in a deep sub basement. Emmy practically lived down here, following Dr. McCoy's every move, his every half grumbled syllable and twenty dollar word, but to Adam, this was just a place for metal tables and glass beakers. Someplace deep in his mind he knew he did not want to be in. He walked around for nearly a half hour, sliding his hand along the tables, coming across Beasts personal desk and playing with the lighted hat upon the table and staring at a picture of his father, maybe slightly older than Adam himself, wearing a different version on the uniform he was wearing and had forgotten to take off in his excitement to get to some real answers. There was his mother, smiling wide, there was Mr. Drake throwing snowballs, Mr. Worthington showing off his wings, and Professor X, who didn't look so frail and old, and one man that he didn't know, as well as someone who looked like Beast hairless.

"Those were good times." A low, growling voice comes from behind him. It had startling him enough that he had picked up a pencil and charged it with a glowing red energy without much thought and nearly hurled it at the figure behind him. "Stand down boy! It's me!" Beast instinctively dodged the not yet thrown object and regaining his composure momentarily. "Ah, Yes. Ahem. To what do I owe this pleasure? I presume Emmy sent you?"

"Dr. McCoy. I want to know about my father." Adam shot to the point matter of factly as he discharged the pencil's energy as much as possible before throwing it far behind him with a fizzle and boom . "My mother and Logan only tell me what they think I want to hear. You were one of his closest friends. I want to know everything."

"Oh?" Beast questioned intrigued. "Why now? You've had many years and many a chance to ask." He scratches his blue furred balding head.

"Because I've started having nightmares of watching a monstrous version of him hurting my mother and I want to know if I'm going crazy or not." Adam breathed in the sterile lab air. "Hank, please tell me? Mr. Drake would just make a snowman that looks like an actual man or something."

"I see lad. Come with me, I've much to show you." Beast eyed him. "Do you want me to as your mother here to answer any further questions after you see this? No?"

The door in the wall wasn't noticeable, and had Adam moved the picture on the desk slightly back instead of picking it up, the door would have opened. The smell of old air and chemicals hurried out from behind the open door as the pale green lights from a few liquid filled tanks in the back bathed the metal enclosure eerily. There was also a bookcase labeled "births" on it. Beast picked up one of the tapes from the bookcase with Adam's name on it and motioned him past the tanks which Adam could clearly see something clearly resembling his own form floating in one as he jumped back in horror. "I'll answer that in good time." Beast reassured as they walked past a second tank that held an older looking version of the first form.

"Is that…" Adam tried to speak, but couldn't finish as he walked up to and gingerly touching the tank in wonder as who was in it stirred slightly.

"Yes, and once again, I'll explain this later." Beast hurried him. "Emma comes here once a day so if you want to see this video, I suggest we haste." The graying older man lead him further past the tanks and one Quentin Quire, of whom Adam heard much, but had really just believed he was a story made up to trick the students into behavior. "So, He's real?" Adam asked, trying to lighten the mood as Beast hooked up something of an old viewing device to an even older T.V. There was an old orange couch that Beast obviously used for napping when he hadn't wanted to come up from the lab. "Yes. He is." Beast replied half-minded as the old set flickered to life. "There we have it! Beast exclaimed. "Have a seat boy. I've been meaning to transfer these tapes to a more modern format anyway."

The screen comes to life with his mother, sixteen years younger, but looking pretty much the same as she does now, except in this video, she looks badly beaten and has a broken arm. A flash of anger flumes over Adam as he irately whispers to his viewing partner "Did my father do that?". "All answers in good time, Adam." Beast shushes as the film continues its roll. There was Logan holding Jeans hand as she pushed and there was a badly burned man being attended to in the next bed by a female doctor that Adam barely recognized. Dr. McCoy as at Jeans feet as she gave her last push and a still baby was born. The good doctor was shown quickly assessing the child and getting him to breathe before declaring him to his parents. "Any thoughts on names? I've always been partial to Henry." The younger Beast asks. Adams mother suggests her father's name but the badly burned man, whom Adam then recognizes as Cyclops, begs the name "Adam" and it's consented to before his mother passes out from exhaustion, pain and blood loss.

"Sir." Adam says as he tries to block the image of his mother naked and giving birth. "This isn't quite what I wanted. I wanted to know about him, his integrity, not just that he was Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, but who Scott Summers was or is."

"That is exactly why I had shown you this." Beast's eyes twinkled a little with tears for his friend. "Do you know who Nate Grey is?"

"X-Man?" Adam asked as he'd only researched the name. "He's my brother from an alternate time line. Why?"

"Scott and you're mother had just met the poor lost lad months before, but upon discovering that he was their son, in one way or another, your parents bonded deeply with him. They loved him enough that when a villain named Apocalypse tried to take Nate's body as his own, you do know who Apocalypse is, Correct?" Beast fumbled for more tapes and archives.

"Not completely. When we studied him in school last semester, my mother had me pulled from the class." Adam replied looking back at those awful green tanks.

"Ah yes, the rundown is that he's a nasty mutant who can only live by taking over a persons body. He burns through them, some quick, some slower, but the mutants that come from your mother's blood don't burn out, no matter how much energy is used through them." Beast condensed a thesis into a few sentences. "So, Apocalypse was ready to steal Nate because of his incredible mutant abilities, but your father pushed Nate out of the way and sacrificed his self."

"So, then how am I here?" Adam puzzled. "How did he get so burned? Who are in those tanks?"

"Your mother was kidnapped some time later by Mr. Sinister, is he another one your mother doesn't want you to see?" Beast asks as he popped in the old security tape of that day. "Doesn't matter, you need to see this in case he ever comes for you. This is what happened. I found this is Scotts old system years after this happened. He's forgotten he'd hooked it up and it didn't work afterwards thankfully" The old tape whirred through the machine as his mother's voice came over the speakers, obviously terrified. "Fight him Scott!" She shrieked as his optic blast knocked her to the scorched ground. She must have put up one hell of a fight "He's not you!" she tries to reach Scott through the mess that is Apocalypse.

"Scott Summers is dead!" the monster wearing his father's mutilated form cackles as he kicks the down woman out cold. A second figure, one Adam remembers from his childhood, screaming to his mother about monsters in his closet appears. "Get the woman, Sinister, This body cannot host me too many more months" The ugly thing wearing his father's once handsome face bellows. The paler and much less gruesome looking man picks up the limp, bruised woman and disappears as someone who looks just like his mother is left in her place.

"This video says May the year before I was born. Mr. McCoy, I don't understand. How could my father be dead a month before I was even conceived?" The boy tries to wrap his head around things as the clicking of boots comes down the secret hall, distracting both parties momentarily.

"Henry? Are you here?" Emma Frosts voice comes through, echoing along the hallow space. "Emmy's just left to go shopping with Marie and Remy so I have a few hours before… Oh. Hello Adam. What a nice surprise! Henry? A word with you please?"

"Ah, yes. I'll be back in a moment, Adam." Beast flusters as he knows anytime a woman says "A word with you" is never a good thing.

"His mother should be telling him these things, Henry!" Emma harshly whispers. "She doesn't even know that these tanks are down here or what's in them! Xavier and I have gone through hell the last thirteen years to keep this from anyone but us three!" She walks over to the tank and back, her heels clicking the whole way. "The boy wasn't ready!" She pauses. "What's Jean going to do when she finds out not only do you have a clone with her supposed dead exes conscience in it, but you have the twin to her son in another?"

"Jean asked me to be part of explaining things to Adam." Beast defended. "There are just some things that a mother shouldn't be the one to tell her son." His comforting voice was not so melodic. "Such as did she tell anyone the day Scott "died" was the day their divorce came through,? Did you ever mention to anyone that you and Charles put Scotts mind in the cloned body? Or did we tell anybody the deal we made for this body? Did you tell them the body was damaged because you made a mistake and that is why he's forced to "live" in this tank?"

"Don't you blame this on me!" Emma smacks him, his fur covering up most of the sound. "You should have kept Jean away! Her being so close to us is what sent his brain into seizures! Oh! Henry, we just can't keep doing this! She softened towards him apologetically. "You're right. Adam's sixteen and we can't hide everything much longer. Charles is nearly dead, the children are nearly grown, Jean is still this schools headmistress and Scott has little chance of ever getting better. I'm sorry Henry."

"If you don't mind me asking," Adam, who has been listening to every word, "If my mother is so powerful, why didn't you have her rebuild his brain, and when did I gain a twin?"


	7. Chapter 7

Just as you well know, I've no ownership of this material.

Motive and Actions

"Adam," Emma starts slowly as she reaches almost motherly to move that stubborn lock of brown hair he always has hanging in his eyes. "It's just not that simple. Your mother is very, very powerful, frightfully so, but she'd need to know every thought, every memory that your father had. She'd have to know where every synapse and every cell lay in his brain. That's one of the reasons she couldn't heal his original body." Emma sighed, thankful that at least this one of Jeans children wasn't a telepath. She didn't think she could own up to the whole truth, not even after all this time.

"I can slightly understand that Ms. Frost, I don't think that's everything, I know my mother should know he's here, but I can understand that at least." Adam looked at her, reminiscent of Scotts prune face. "Does Emmy know he's here? More to the point," Adam says as he turns to Beast. "I didn't see a second baby in that movie. Where did he come from?" He throws his thumb towards the first tank.

Beast removes his glasses, tears welling in his blue eyes and dampening his still hot from Emma's slap, furry cheek. He slowly, almost shamefully walks to the same shelf and pulls out a tape labeled "Birth X" and one from another shelf inscribed "Summer Surveillance". "No, Emmy has no clue of this room Adam. She's a dear girl, but secrets aren't her strong hold. Come back with me please, and Adam, please try to understand, this was hidden from your mother because Charles and I at the time felt it was unwise to burden her potentially unstable mind, and risk what could have come." Beast looked away momentarily to wipe his eyes and regain composure. "Then it just became something we should have, but never did tell her."

The first tape was from a small camera that Wolverine had on his costume as he and his team infiltrated Sinister's lair. Through the shadows, Adam sees the monstrous form of Apocalypse wearing his dead fathers form standing above Adams very pregnant mother. She's already pretty messed up, but Apocalypse raises his stolen hand to her again to strike her, and she bites him as hard as she can. Adam knew his mother was feisty but to watch her fight the way she did, as pregnant and weak as she was, he was proud to be her son, but sickened by the beating he watched her take to the point he begged Beast to shut it off.

"Mr. McCoy, what does this have to do with me having a twin?" Adam cringed as he tried to expel the memory from his head.

"This was the nightmare you were having?" Beast asked as he put in the second tape. Emma was crying softly at the sight of what nearly cost this child his life as she clicked her way back to Scott's tank. "This will explain this situation better, Adam."

"That's exactly what I've been seeing. How would I have known this, Beast?" Adam questioned as the screen flickered to life again, showing about ten minutes after his own birth.

"Hank!" Logan's voice rang through the speakers of the old set panicked. "Get in here! It's Jean!" Scott sits up in his bed as best his burned body can to see what's going on as Logan's clothes are drenched in his unconscious wife's blood as he holds a still, blue and bloody baby, looking shocked at what's just happened. Beast was already working on keeping Adam alive, the beating from Apocalypse did more damage than he thought. Logan sets to work getting the frail, skinny baby to breath as Cecilia rushes in to what looks like a massacre.

"Logan! I need to hook you up to an I.V. now!" She rushed as Scott tries to get out of bed to assist. "Scott! Sit your skinny ass down, mister!" She shouts as she gets the needle into Logan's arm. "You're the only one here with Jean's blood type!" The baby gasps and breathes, but doesn't move, something's wrong. Scott is trying so hard to get to the child while Logan pumps blood into Jean. "Jeannie, don't you do this to me!" Adam hears Logan growl as Jean's vitals begin to fail and the whirr of Professor Xavier's chair comes into the room. He takes the child from Cecilia and works on keeping the child alive and warmed his self. He watches his mother's eyes open briefly in shock as she sits up with a gasp and falls back to the bed, the machine beside her drawing a long beep. Everything in the room stops, Scott, from what can be seen from behind his glasses, with his mouth hanging open, is too stunned to breath as he watches his wife apprehensively, just slightly crying as he's still too dehydrated from his ordeal. Logan looks away, openly devastated with his large hand to his face to hide the pain of what feels to be his own heart stopping. Cecilia rushing to see what can be done as then Jean raises out of her bed releasing a large amount of psychic energy that drops everybody to the floor like discarded rag dolls. The tape ended there.

"That outburst caused everybody in that room to suffer a Gran Mal seizure, Adam, including your twin. Professor thought it best not to tell her right away and soon it just turned into something we never told her." Beast sighed as he wiped his glasses, more just fuddling with them to repress his feelings. "Professor wanted to make us all forget what had happened, but your father begged not to forget his son. He came down here every day to check on him, I think he slowly began to blame your mother for this, and more so himself."

"Why is he in a tank?" Adam boomed. "How did my father get in there? Wouldn't have been more humane to let him stay dead instead of this?"

"Adam, I…" But Beast doesn't get to finish his sentence, Emma comes running, as best one can in her footwear. "The alarms were off at Logan and Jeans! At first we though Jean's powers set them off again while they, you know. But Logan videoed through, they need help now! Henry, bring your kit!"

The video showing Jean Grey and Wolverine's home didn't lie. With two such powerful people living there, whatever happened here should have been little of a problem, and as a matter of fact made no sense that is at least until Beast's fur fell off. Someone has activated the field power inhibiters put in place all those years ago just in case Jean went dark again. "We gotta get her outta here, Doc!" Logan says as best he can in his own woozy state of blood loss. It does no good to ask what happened here. Sabretooth is laying half dead on the floor where someone had broken his neck and bits of tentacle belonging to what must have been Madame Hydra litter the floor. Her body is missing as she must have got away.

"Mom?" Adam calls out to his mother running up the stairs as best his long legs carry him. He slips on the blood wasted on the floor and looks up to see his parents room decimated, Logan barely walking and his mother crumpled on the floor like a discarded toy. "Mom!" he shouts as he stands up, as muck covered as the usually spotless floor he's unstuck himself from, to rush to his mother's side. The way this room looks, Adam should have took Logan up on that hand to hand training, even without powers, Jean really messed some people up before they got to her.

"Adam! Help Emma carry your Mother out past the yard post, I'll get Logan!" Beast spits out orders as Logan claims to be fine before passing out face first.

Adam doesn't know what to do here. He's dressed in his best suit, he can hear the monster who took his mother from him bragging, growling about it. They're not putting her in the ground this time. She's not dead; a person like his mother never truly is. Some poison Madame Hydra pumped into her slowed everything in her body down to where she's on a ventilator. She can't breathe on her own, perhaps if Beast, or even Professor Xavier felt comfortable letting her have access to her powers, she could heal quickly, but given what happened the last time, they're understandably hesitant. She's going to be put into one of those awful tanks today to heal slowly. To minimize the risk of her power flairs causing permanent harm to everyone here, and Adam cannot convince them otherwise.

This is why he wears his best suit because if his body is found, he wants to at least be well dressed.

"You don't have to do this with me kid." His partner in crime tells him bluntly. "I'd rather you didn't." Logan and he are on the same page. Get her past the inhibiters, out past the gate and let her bring herself back. The only problem is, whoever's there next to her, is likely going to get fried. They both couldn't understand why not just put her in a containment room and let her go, Both these men love her too much to let her rot in a jar, now that Logan knows those horrid things are there.

"I want to, Logan. She's my mother." Adam half whispers back as they begin to move her, unhooking the machines stuck to her. They know they've got to move fast, the ruckus that the beeping machines should make would cause all sorts of unwanted attention. They work quickly and get her where she needed to be, Beast catching wind of the act and in quick pursuit, albeit too late. But there is no real bang, there is a ring of fiery energy that whooshes through the men's bodies, but there is just calm as she flutters open her green eyes. At that point, something looks to be very wrong. She looks crazed as though she has neither idea where she's at, nor who these people are with her.

"Mom?" Adam asks slowly as he approaches her warily. "It's me, Adam. Are you o.k.?"

"Boy, she doesn't even know who she is right now. You two should have listened to me." Beast replies nearly scared breathless as he grabs the boy to run. Logan makes an attempt to calm her, the briefest glint of recollection flashes in her wild eyes before she grasps her head in pain as she silently slumps to the ground again as the whirr of Professor Xavier's chair wheels his decrepit form to the gates.

"You should have left this alone, Logan." His mind washes over the group, as he's no longer capable of physical speech. "She would have been fine, eventually. I'm sorry this had to happen this way. Henry, she woke Scott."


End file.
